VIRGINIA’S LEWIS & CLARK: ROOTS OF A LEGACY
They were “hometown boys” who grew up in a time when dreams of western exploration became reality. Now, 200 years later, the nation commemorates their extraordinary westward journey.

Their remarkable mission began here in central Virginia. Meriwether Lewis was born in what is now Albemarle County, and William Clark’s family had roots in Albemarle soil. Their ideas of what lay beyond the Mississippi River were nurtured by Thomas Jefferson, a “vicarious westerner” who had never traveled farther west than Hot Springs. Jefferson intended to establish the United States as a continental nation, an “Empire of Liberty” that reached from Atlantic to Pacific. To further his goal, Jefferson sent Lewis and Clark’s Expedition of North Western Discovery.

Through interviews with descendants of Lewis and Clark like Sara Lee Barnes, historians such as Cinder Stanton and John Allen, and owners of local historic homes including Dolley Buswell (Locust Hill) and Clara Belle Wheeler (Buena Vista), VIRGINIA’S LEWIS & CLARK: ROOTS OF A LEGACY explores how the families and contemporaries of Lewis and Clark prepared them for this daring voyage and examines the duo’s influence on Charlottesville and Albemarle.

Production funding for this program was provided by the City of Charlottesville, the County of Albemarle, the Charlottesville-Albemarle Convention and Visitors Bureau, and the University of Virginia Lewis and Clark Bicentennial Project.

©2004 Commonwealth Public Broadcasting

Portraits provided by Independence National Historical Park